Before I get to the confessions, a short tour of the four fabulous DC-area gardens open to the public through the Garden Conservancy’s Open Gardens Program. (And thanks to local APLD VP Carolyn Mullet for making it happen.) The home and garden above and in the next three photos are modern in the best ways – doing smart […]

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Like Ivette, I ignore the ubiquitous Thriller-Filler-Spiller advice for container plantings – because the more species in a single pot, the harder it is to keep the thing looking good. Ditto getting it to look good in the first place. For me, containers look best simplified, like the 3...

I hate rules. I mean really, I do. I always have. My brain won’t accept them. If someone tells me that THIS is the way to do a thing, I will try and find another way to do it. It may come from my years as an actor, and...

Remember the Joni Mitchell song “Big Yellow Taxi” about paving paradise and putting up a parking lot? Every organic gardener’s favorite line is surely “Give me spots on my apples. But leave me the birds and the bees. Please!” So, when people notice the insect holes in the sweet potato vine...

While on a brief getaway in the northern Catskills, we saw plenty of natural beauty, including late summer wildflowers (rudbeckia, asters, eupatorium, and more) along the trails. We also saw some lovely manmade landscaping that took full advantage of its context. Along route 28, just past Phoenicia, you’ll pass...

While here at GardenRant the hot topic was rich people’s gardens, love ’em or hate ’em, I was strolling the garden of one of the super-rich – Marjorie Merriweather Post (as in Post Cereals). Here’s the very grand mansion, named Hillwood, filled with Russian imperial art (including Fabergé Eggs) and...

Last Friday I rode shotgun through the Beltsville Ag Research Center in Marcia van Horn’s Ranger as she checked on some of her 175 nesting boxes for bluebirds and tree swallows, with the occasional chickadee, titmouse, wrens or nuthatches taking advantage of the accommodations. Nest boxes were first installed on the 6,700-acre property...

Landscape architect/blogger Thomas Rainer is one of my favorite designers, something I may have mentioned before on this blog. Gardenblogger Margaret Roach is a Rainer fan, too. She sought him out for an interview on her podcast, and it’s terrific. (Transcript here.) My favorite bits are toward the end, when Thomas...

Happy Independence Day, Americans! Have fun, stay safe, et cetera. Now on to our topic – flags in the garden and their impact on others. Take my neighbor’s Old Glory above, hanging on the privacy screen between our townhouse gardens. Like it or not – and for holidays I...

With lawn reduction growing in popularity, email groups are lively with discussions of how to remove the stuff. There are basically four choices – digging, using a sod-cutter, smothering and spraying with herbicide. I’ve removed a far bit of sod over the years, always using that first one – great...

We’ve all been there in one way or another – you awake at 3 am and groggily make your way to the bathroom. No need for the light you think, it’ll just wake me up. And then, halfway through relieving yourself, you feel a giant thing scrabble madly down...

When the words “garden” and “art” collide, you get all kinds of results. There might be a garden that contains one or more unique objects made by artists. Another could be filled with whirligigs, gazing balls, sun catchers, or—possibly—gnomes. Or maybe the two words mean nothing more than rows...

Help! I’m loving having bird feeders and a bird bath at the edge of my patio, but not loving the seeds sprouting like crazy and causing much weeding to be done. Also, I have to sweep the patio almost daily. To the bird-feeders among you, what do you suggest?...

What strikes me as the most common thread among all the diverse gardeners I have met or read is that so many don’t unwind much in their own gardens. Of course, we all have that (perhaps infinite) list of things we want to do to improve our gardens. What...

Here’s another doublefile viburnum post. No doubt, many (including Susan) would say this one ought to be pruned. It won’t be though, unless there’s some sort of extreme practical reason. Planted in an impossible situation—between two houses and a tree on a property line, in more than partial shade—the...

It is a joy to grow certain plants for the memories they invoke and the anticipation of their familiar scent, sight, taste, and other beloved qualities, as well as the pleasure of seeing them expand and perhaps self-propagate in our gardens. However, it is an equally delightful experience to...

Believe it or not: After initially pouring some compost into the globular bottle, Latimer used a wire to carefully lower in a spiderwort seeding, and then added a pint of water to the mix. The bottle was sealed and placed in a sunny corner. Apparently, the bottle planting, started...

Guest Rant by Megan Cain I get why you till. There’s something in all of us gardeners that leaps with joy when we see a freshly tilled bed. That rich, dark, blank canvas beckons us to come on over and work our vegetable magic. We imagine ourselves gently planting...

As the winter winds to its possible close, here are some images of my indoor gardening efforts. These Madame Sophie hyacinths have a looser flowering habit than others, but they’re quite charming. Splendid Cornelia in forcing glasses Vuurbank hyacinths Strangely, non-tazetta narcissus take just as long to force...

It’s not that I’m actually killing them. I can keep the plants alive, no problem. Indeed, I am very proud of my houseplant success in general; I have a huge 13-year-old gardenia that bursts into bloom every summer and a jasmine almost that old that provides lovely fragrance from...